The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) is set to commence activities at its Institute of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
NALDA targets to support the growth and development of Agribusiness in Nigeria by transforming agribusiness into a modern and appealing career path for the youth through a combination of Practical training, specialised curriculum, cutting-edge technology, and entrepreneurial education in the field of agribusiness and agronomic practices.
This will in turn translate to the country being better positioned to attain food security and ensuring a stable and sufficient food supply for the nation in line with President Bola Tinubu’s food security agenda.
The NALDA’s agribusiness Institute also aims at catching the younger generation from the Primary to the tertiary level by introducing them to Agribusiness early while also serving as a platform for professional research.
Prince Paul Ikonne, the Executive Secretary of NALDA, while addressing journalists in his office in Abuja, said the activities of the institutes will first commence in September this year at the Aba, Abia state institute as the campus is fully equipped with facilities needed to build a formidable school of agribusiness.
The institute in Aba has a completed 600-capacity student sports complex, 2 administrative blocks, libraries and laboratories, a clinic, 9 solar-powered boreholes, 30 rooms hostel and 4 classroom blocks with a total of 24 classrooms.
The Aba Campus also holds a 50,000-capacity fish pond, poultry pens, 5000 capacity Snail house, fish hatchery, 50 cage Grass cutter pens, crop fields, 3 tractors, handheld harvesters and 9 boreholes to cater for the needs of both the farm and the institute.
“We also came up with NALDA Institute of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship that has the approval of Mr President. And today, that school is taking off in September. We have students that are going to start in September; the one in Abia is fully ready and commencing the 2024/2025 academic session this September.
“The one in Ogun is 99% to completion and they will commence academic session by next year. The Institute in Katsina is 89% complete. So, these are projects that we initiated with the idea and knowledge that if we don’t catch them young into agriculture, agricultural production and agribusiness, Nigeria we will lose farmers as the current generation of farmers are ageing and retiring. This is why we came up with the NALDA Institute of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship from primary to secondary to OND level”.
While reeling out the achievements of NALDA in the four years of his time as the Executive Secretary of NALDA, Ikonne said he is proud of how far the authority has come.
Reminiscing on how he was handed NALDA to resuscitate in 2020 without an office or staff to work with, Ikonne said that reclaiming NALDA’s lands and partnering with states to empower youths across the country, was done one step at a time.
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